Super-Wanky Special Poll: Nobody Loves Me, Everybody Hates Me. I Think I'll Go Eat Trolls.

[thefourthvine]

Except, see, I really don't want this to get wanky. I'm just not sure there's any way to discuss this without wank, although I'm going to try. Try really, really hard.

And please keep in mind, as you read this and select various boxes of clickiness, that I am not asking why no one loves me. Because, actually, I feel very loved. (Um, yeah, the title of the post and the poll would seem to argue otherwise, but my feeling is: if I'm going to post on a topic of potential wankiness, I might as well make fun of myself. That way, at least it will be amusing. To me, I mean.) LJ has been good to me.

It's just that anniversaries are much on my mind lately. (Best Beloved and I will be celebrating our, um, somethingth year together tomorrow. We still haven't figured out just what number year it is, though.) And my LJ anniversary is coming up, so I've been reflecting on it, in my usual mature, considered manner. ("Hmmm. Two years? Really?" [pause for thought] "Oooo! Porn!") And I've noticed that, over time, my experience of LJ has changed. For example, I'm much less likely to make friends (actual friends, not friends-list friends) now, and when I do, it's as a result of me seeking other people out.

Also, I've been getting strange responses to the comments I leave in other people's LJs lately. Used to be, people just responded. Or not. Whichever. Now - well, I sometimes get responses that indicate major astonishment that I commented on a friend's post at all.

This is weird. Isn't it? It's new to me, anyway, and therefore weird to me.

Admittedly, I'm not the biggest commenter; I don't comment on 99.5% of the posts I read, because I'm just not very social. (People who know me in real life are invited to take 10-15 minutes to laugh helplessly on the floor at that understatement.) But that's always been true, the not commenting and the not socializing. So I'm kind of wondering if the subtext of these new, weird responses is, "Wow. You actually came down from your high horse long enough to leave a comment in my LJ! A very long and pointless comment, let me add, which I'm kind of astonished you thought I'd be interested in." (Because when I do comment, I do it to excess. You should all be very glad I don't comment any more often, actually.) In other words, I'm wondering if my bad LJ habits (lack of comments, spotty replying, a dearth of posts) have made me something of, um, a Notorious B.I.T.C.H. (I'm spelling it! For purposes of delicacy! See? No wankiness here!)

Which, hey, if that's the case, I'm fine with it, actually. (Yet more evidence for bitch-hood, I realize.) But, okay. You know how we are all destined for hell because of all the fun we're having? I suspect I will not be frolicking on level 2 with the rest of you lusty folks, but rather wherever it is they store the excessively curious. (I'll be asking "Why?" in hell, in other words. This is a very suitable fate for me.) I'm okay with my LJ experience changing; I'm still having just as much fun here - more fun than is legal in most states, in fact. But I want to know why it's changed.

So I'm asking you.

But, seriously, this is not a request for you to tell me you love me. (Love doesn't need a season! Or a reason! Or a wankfest!) Instead, I invite you to speculate on why other people don't love me. Or, at any rate, why they seem unwilling to talk to me, and why they sometimes act shocked when I talk to them.

Plus, it's an occasion to post a poll. And is there ever a really bad reason to do that?

[Poll #671603]

Comments

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

You're internet famous, hon.

*blinks*

Um, wow. That's...huh. Surprising. But maybe we all get 15 minutes of internet fame, and in that case, I'm very very glad that I'm not, you know, getting mine via a recording of me pretending to be a Jedi or whatever.

I, personally, am just not that interesting, and spend more time than should be necessary refraining from blathering on about bioremediation and hydrocarbon degraders.

But this is the very definition of interesting! No, really, it is. And, actually, I would bet that more people recognize your name than mine; you write fabulous fic, and that's definitely something people remember.

(I was actually having slightly more involved thoughts the other night, about internet fame and what makes a BNF, and all the reasons I will never be one. I think I'm actually okay in my corner, but that it neither here nor there.)

Oooo. You should share your thinkiness on this topic, because BNF is one of the most elusive concepts in all fandom, and I don't mean just for me. (Many things elude me, after all.) I tend to think that we just don't have BNFs anymore; the old structure of fandom gave rise to them, and now that fandom has become so loose and decentralized, there's just no way for someone to develop a big name. But I take it you don't agree?

I really hope that I'm not coming across as stand-offish myself. I've actually been worrying about it, but I just don't always have time to keep up with my flist. I know everyone else is busy too, so perhaps I just let myself become overwhelmed too easily.

Well, you certainly don't strike me as stand-offish at all. You're quiet sometimes, but that's normal.

And I think we all get overwhelmed on a pretty regular basis. It's wonderful that there's so much of fandom, but it's too much for anyone to keep up with. And I get the friends list thing; in most weeks, there are at least two days when I don't check my friends list, but...yeah. Life has to happen, too.

I think almost everyone in fandom understands that there's a sort of a cycle to fannish participation, and people go through various levels of engagement and involvement. So I'm pretty sure you don't come across as stand-offish to anyone else, either. Or, okay, anyone who is sane. (This is the internet, after all. There are strange people here.)

(It seems I've posted much more than anyone else in this thread. Apologies. But, hey, I out wanked you.)

Hail, fellow long-commenter! Although I don't think you actually wanked, per se. I mean, you were on topic and interesting. Doesn't that mean it can't be wank?

*reaches for the Unbridged Fannish Dictionary, 13th edition*

*regards the nine-page entry for 'wank' with horror*

*hastily puts dictionary away again*

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

But this is the very definition of interesting! No, really, it is.

It's so nice that someone is actually amused by my RANDOM GEEKOUTS. I try to limit the hard science ones, but the biology kind of slips through because I have so. much. love. (Hi, you have no idea how close I am to writing up "Allopatric speciation, repeated bottleneck events, and genetic diversity: Even if Teyla wanted to have John's love child she couldn't (Also, everyone in the Pegasus Galaxy is their own uncle).")

And, actually, I would bet that more people recognize your name than mine; you write fabulous fic, and that's definitely something people remember.
Ahahahah. That amuses me, actually. Your friend-of list is ten times larger than mine. You're an order of magnitude more popular, hon. *G* My flist just broke 100 this week. You're one of an elite group of intelligent reccers who are able to speak about why they love a story, and who actually recs GOOD stories all the time. There are some fandom specific reccers I've seen recently, and am always left with the feeling that the criteria is something along the lines of 'so, is it ___/____, and did it have TOO many typos?'

(Also, thank you ever so much for the nice part of that -- I'm trying to get better at taking compliments, I really am.)

Oooo. You should share your thinkiness on this topic ... the old structure of fandom gave rise to them, and now that fandom has become so loose and decentralized, there's just no way for someone to develop a big name. But I take it you don't agree?

Just remember, you asked and I suck at meta. *G* I'm of the opinion that we have two sorts of BNFs on LJ these days -- fandom specific ones, and the polyfannish. LJ by its very nature encourages cliqueing, but I tend to view the grouping as radial -- you have certain people around whom there is a higher concentration of other fans, and this results in their having giant friend-of lists. It's also sometimes indicated by response to both stories and regular journal entries -- goodness knows, quality of the work itself is not always an indicator of quality of writing.

I think the most basic indicator is general familiarity with the fan -- something that still exists, even in a more decentralized environment. We don't really have one or two top dogs, more loose grouping of people who are well-known for different reasons. People are BNFs for multiple reasons these days. There's the most basic 'writing great fic/running an archive mold,' but with LJ it's easier to be known for either of these withing a specific pairing. Meta BNFs are more exclusive to LJ, I think. People who have a lot to say about the source, who prod and ask questions, or exclaim popular things the loudest, become know. Iconage and/or wallpapers/manips are an entire other category.

I think the real BNFs these days are multifannish. People like yourself, shrift, astolat, rageprufrock, nestra, seperis -- all of whom may have a main fandom, but have worked with multiple others.


Me? I don't meta, I don't really ship, I write a hella lotta gen (which really isn't too popular these days), and while I'm panfannish, I tend not to stay in a single fandom for long enough to draw an audience, and my user name is not exactly one that inspires confidence. I'm just not a very fannish person, to be honest. My inability to stay in a fandom actually has roots in my writing style itself, as I've recently decided/discovered.

Well, you certainly don't strike me as stand-offish at all. You're quiet sometimes, but that's normal.
Hee! Thank you. I'm just perpetually behind on LJ (school and extracurriculars and work, yay!), and I don't comment on people's journals anywhere near as much as I should. I rarely leave feedback, partially because I'm not that good at it, partially because I figure no one wants to hear from me. It's odd that I'm this retiring online -- you can ask sprat, I'm actually quite boisterous.

*regards the nine-page entry for 'wank' with horror*
I just tend to go with 'self aggrandizement,' and leave all the British slang out of it. *G* Less bothersome when there's wank exploding all over the place.